“Port?” Alexander had gone immediately to the drinks cabinet in the corner of his library. Gabe sank into a chair, gratefully. The three of them - Alexander, Gabe, and Geoffrey - had spent much of the afternoon at Livia’s funeral, a formal affair in the public rooms of the Council Keep. The Council had, uniformly, gone their different ways as soon as the guests were leaving, bar Cyrus and Mabyn. It had been formal, brief, and attended by all the people who needed to be there, but not more than that.
Gabe had volunteered to go in lieu of his parents. Papa was on call for all manner of things, and Mama was having one of her worse weeks. Funerals involved, along with all the other strains, quite a lot of standing around for uncertain amounts of time. Besides, Gabe felt an obligation to attend, having been there when Garin Fortier brought her back, given the glimpses he’d had then.
All three of them were in formal black suits, but they’d all near simultaneously abandoned the black silk ritual over-robes and the relevant formal marks of rank on the hooks in the hallway. Geoffrey had what was clearly his particular chair, and he was staring at a point on the bookshelves, deep in thought.
“How much time do you have?” Gabe leaned back, trying to find a position that didn’t make his ankle ache.
“I said I’d be at Arundel by supper time, to help spell Isembard. It’s a gift that he doesn’t have to juggle being at Schola, but we can’t go on like we are, any of us. Who knows what we’re going to do then?”
Gabe wasn’t sure about how to ask about that. Geoffrey nudged a footstool in his direction with one foot and stepped into the fray. “How badly off is Garin?” Gabe didn’t know how he’d have felt if something happened to Rathna, much less like that. Except he knew his world would have broken into the tiniest shards, and nothing would have made sense.
Alexander didn’t answer immediately. He brought them both glasses of port, going back for his own before he claimed his own chair and settled in it with a tired grunt. “Not like any of us expected, including him. Including Livia, I’m sure.” He rubbed his face. “There are a couple of friends, in as much as Garin has actual friends. Montgomery Worth, his wife Alicia, what was the name? Helling. Anthony Helling. But none of them are, shall we say, up to dealing with Garin if he actually decides to be difficult. Isembard wouldn’t have managed, for a long time.”
Which was to say, Gabe could interpret, violent or lashing out. The man had skills and strong magic to draw on, and he had been visibly only barely controlled during the funeral and its aftermath. He paused and asked something he’d never have thought to ask a decade or two ago. “How are you, Alexander?”
Geoffrey and Alexander exchanged one of their lightning quick looks, before Alexander snorted, but he also relaxed a hair. “Conflicted, but that’s my average Tuesday. Livia was, well, we usually say, challenging. I don’t think any of us had realised how much Garin leaned into that challenge, knowing it would absolutely be there. What it means now that she isn’t. And it’s something that’s going to keep hitting him, over and over again.” He flicked his fingers. “And I, well. Liking’s the wrong word entirely. But she gave herself wholly to her work once she agreed it needing doing, and I’m old enough to know how rare that is.”
Before Gabe could say anything in reply, Alexander went on. “May I speak freely about Friday?” He inclined his head at Geoffrey to make the query entirely clear. Not that Gabe hadn’t already known that. Alexander was right he was feeling complicated, if he were being that unsubtle.
Gabe gave the question a sensible amount of consideration. “You know your oaths far better than I do, sir. And you must have questions, beyond what we talked about then.”
“And not much time to ask them in.” Alexander agreed. “Did you have anything in particular?”
“Yes, but it’s very much Council business, though it touches on demesne lands. Rather thoroughly.” Which meant Geoffrey had some useful input.
“There, Geoffrey, you can stay, Lord of the Ladder.” The epithet clearly meant something to Geoffrey, who seemed entirely amused and at home. “Tell me about your experience on Friday.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “I’d say I was not expecting a viva voce, but I do know you, Alexander. I’ve already given my report to Mason and Witt, of course. In summary, at least. There were, in fact, matters they decided they wanted to disclaim knowledge of for the moment.”
“Start there.” The comment was brisk, then Alexander took a long sip from his port.
“In brief, I was on your land, your particular land. I saw your reaction, and then Smy - Cyrus’s. I didn’t know what it meant, exactly, but of course I knew how serious it was.” Gabe considered. “To be honest, my instincts drove me as much as my training, but both in tandem. A two horse carriage, both used to working together, pulling the weight either, neither shirking.”
“Shirking is, to be fair, not an adjective I have ever applied to you.” Alexander nodded once to accompany that moment of praise. “We’ll come back to that. And?”
Gabe shrugged. “I could do something. I knew I could. And you needed it. No one’s argued with that at all, even the Portal Keeper’s Guild. They did drag me in yesterday for an explanation, mind you.”
“Trouble?” Geoffrey leaned forward at that.
“Not any longer. For either me or Rathna. Not that they can get at her to lecture her at the moment.” Gabe let out a long breath. “She has a question, though, separate from the others. I put it to Geoffrey, Saturday morning.”
Alexander considered that, but did not get distracted from the original topic. “Come back to that. What did you, no. Let me ask a different question. Why did you act as you did?”
“Who am I answering this question for?” Gabe parried back just as quickly.
“Myself, in all my parts, Gabe.” Alexander shook his head. “I cannot untangle them, especially not this week, for all you might actually be able to do it.”
Gabe smiled at that. “I do like having my skills appreciated. I worked hard for a number of them.” It made the other two men laugh, and they all needed that. Gabe spread his hands. “I did what I do. I saw something that was needed, that I could do. I was near certain no one else there could. There was the dual problem: to keep invasion from Paris from coming to the Keep, and to preserve the portal for travel within Albion. You’re in an awfully awkward location for anything by land or sea.”
“Intentionally, yes, but it does have limitations.” Alexander considered. “Tell me what you did, from when the alarm went, would you? What you sensed.”
It had come to that, then. Gabe had thought it might, though he was, perhaps, a tad surprised that it was Geoffrey here and not Cyrus. Easier for him. Honestly, he trusted Geoffrey, solidly and securely. And he knew the man was as focused on getting things handled as any Penelope might like, rather than getting stuck in protocol.
“The alarm went. I noticed how you waited a second to confirm. That the pitch told you something, I think. I saw Cyrus go white, and I suspect, in hindsight, that it was when he knew Livia was dead. I don’t know how you all are tied together, magically, but I do assume there’s some sort of enchantment.”
“Cyrus as the centre hub, all of us as spokes, more or less.” Alexander flipped his palm up. “I had a feeling of something being wrong. Unsettled. Moving, there’s the word. But not what, not until just before the alarm. Garin, I think, more than Livia.”
“I wondered.” Gabe offered after a moment. “You taught him, before Isembard. That makes a bond, even if it’s been years.”
“You are kind not to count them.” Alexander lifted his glass. “Go on.”
“I got to the courtyard a few steps behind Cyrus, and I called the charm immediately. I can’t not, you understand? Not easily. It’s the first thing we’re taught about arriving at a scene where there’s magical damage. Who is alive, who is dead, who might be dead momentarily.”
Alexander grunted. “I am familiar with the problem, yes. I was sure you’d done your own evaluation. The confirmation was a help, though. You know as well as I some of it can trick the mind. Wishing for something different.” That was more of an admission than Gabe had expected to hear, in all honesty, but he appreciated it.
“And then you asked if I could do something about the portal.” He swallowed. “I didn’t tell the Guild this. We might later, Rathna and I need to talk it out, when we get a chance, in person.” He was holding fast to the thought that they would, that they’d get her home from France, and sooner than later. That she’d be in a fit state to have that conversation, which seemed a tad more tenuous than Gabe could stand to think of. “I near enough got lost in it. Pulled into it. I’ve never worked with a portal that old, almost no one has. Half a dozen of the Portal Keepers, not even all of them. And not when what it had just been connected to was what’s the word. Enflamed.”
“Almost, but didn’t.” Geoffrey’s voice cut across Gabe’s own thoughts suddenly, dropping ripples into the pool. “What was it like?”
“Ancient. Foreign. Like being dropped back into a world where people spoke ancient Greek in its many dialects, all making sense of it, rather than the fragments that survived. And - I haven’t exactly had time for an extended discussion with Rathna. But she thinks it is as if layers of years were stripped off the portal, that it had, in a word, gone back to thinking in something spoken by the ancient Britons. It made sense, more or less, but it was foreign in ways I don’t have words for at all.” He let out a rough breath, almost a cough. “And then I knew I couldn’t fight it, I could only yield to it. Be vulnerable to it.” He glanced at Alexander now, watching the expressions attentively.
“What had you expected to do?” Of course Alexander would ask the question Gabe didn’t know how to answer.
“Not that.” He frowned. “Stillness is not my gift. You both know that.”
“Mabyn thought it quite compelling, for the record.” Alexander dropped his own pebble in the pond. Gabe was sure the two older men were coordinating in some way he couldn’t quite see. “She had some interesting comments.”
“And you’re not going to tell me.” Gabe knew how that went.
“You are doomed to disappointment, yes, at least for the time being, though when we can catch our breath more, I do have a few things to talk about. She noted, however, that you understood the risk, the scope of the risk, but that you gave it your all, unstintingly. And she has enough skill of her own to understand how you were, how did she put it. Oh yes, distilling a gas at the same time you were spinning three plates in the air and juggling a flaming torch or two. I have considered commissioning a caricature to mark the occasion.”
Alexander said it absolutely straight-faced, so it took a moment to register. Then Gabe was setting down his port, and laughing like he hadn’t in weeks, bent over and shaking. The others joined him, somewhat less enthusiastically. When Gabe finally caught his breath, he said, “Please do. I would love a copy to give Mama for Winter Solstice.”
It led to another round of chuckles, then Alexander shrugged. “These small things are within my power, I will let you know. She was impressed. As was I, to be honest. It is one thing to know intellectually of your skills, the range of them, and another to see them in action outside the duelling salle.”
Gabe acknowledged that praise with a simple nod. He didn’t need to demur, and he didn’t need to make the praise louder. After a moment, Geoffrey cleared his throat. “That brings us to the other two questions, doesn’t it? The one you raised with me, first, or your other?”
“The one I brought to you. In short, Alexander, Rathna wonders if the portal under the Tower of London is still potentially active. It was shut off with the fall of Aquitaine in 1453. From what I could find yesterday, Richard III had intended to open it, and - that never happened. It’s down in the depths of the White Tower, walled off.”
“So you need what? No, wait. Physical access, which Geoffrey might, in fact, just be able to arrange. And the Council’s blessing?”
“Both. It being a matter of national benefit. No one else would know it’s active, and we could lock it down near immediately.”
Alexander steepled his fingers. “What’s your other request? You can draw on quite a favour at the moment, but I don’t know how you want to spend it.”
“This is personal. I want my wife home, and we don’t know how long that might—” Gabe stopped short. “Her situation might change quite rapidly.” It came out tight and prim, but both Alexander and Geoffrey understood. “The other is decidedly a Council matter, and related to my current work.”
Geoffrey shifted a little at that, reaching for his glass again. “Should I give you a moment?”
“Not on my account.” Gabe waited for Alexander to focus on him again. “It was Lord Thanet who gave me the idea, though I’d touched on it with you earlier, Alexander. That dream and the green dragon.”
“Ah.” There were volumes in that, and Gabe was suddenly certain Alexander had had more dreams, just as inchoate as Gabe himself had.
“What would happen if we could get a token? The sort of thing no one could argue with, to align Albion behind a shared approach to the protection work, and that might also carry weight with those outside Albion. Lord Thanet said he’d accept a unanimous vote of the Council - unlikely, even now - or a token that could only come from the Fatae.”
Alexander let out a sharp whistle, startled into a visible reaction. “You certainly do follow my namesake’s approach to the Gordian knot, don’t you? My. Give me a minute. Not so much unweaving there as moving the entire loom to another plane entirely. And I’m quite sure Caliburn’s unavailable, or Excalibur, or whatever we’re calling it.”
“I have no desire to be king.” Gabe said it to Alexander’s back as the older man stood, moving to circle along one row of bookshelves, then making a loop. Geoffrey watched him intently, reading something there that Gabe couldn’t spot, some hint of either tension or the line of his thinking. Geoffrey wasn’t particularly worried, Gabe thought, but there was nothing in his world but what Alexander was doing at that moment.
It took several minutes for Alexander to alight again. “Is that how you want to spend your favour, then? A petition to the Fatae? We’ll have to be quick about the planning. Solstice is Friday. So we’d need to decide by…”
Then his shoulders went tight, and he swore, in Arabic, then added a comment that must be a prayer and in ancient Egyptian, his family language. The room went entirely still for a minute, more than a minute. Finally, Alexander nodded once. “Of course it would be Solstice.” He said it as if were one of those pieces that fell into place, no matter how everyone might want to avoid them. “If you’re sure. What do you need from me?”
“Permission from the Council. And then the wording, of course. I don’t know how long it would take you to put together a ritual petition. I assume faster than I could. I do have some drafts.” Gabe leaned back a bit now. Alexander hadn’t dismissed the idea out of hand.
He grunted again, and pulled his journal over. “Can you be at the Keep at ten tomorrow?”
“I will make myself available, yes. Not a full meeting?”
“You need to convince Cyrus, at least. Bring your best arguments. And your drafts. You seek a token, something that anyone of Albion would know, and ideally something that others would recognise. That’s a trick, isn’t it? The language and what you might be handed. What are you willing to give for it?”
That was a harder question. “Quite a lot. I won’t know my limit until I’m asked, I suspect.” Gabe shrugged, once. “I didn’t on Friday. I hope to rise to the occasion and not fail.”
Something in that brought Alexander’s chin up, a sudden fierce stare like some great predator making a judgement. “You might just manage it, at that.” For all there were a dozen other things in Gabe’s head right now, he caught a thread there, something to follow through. It had the same weight and shiver as that first conversation about taking on this work in all its forms and seeing the magical protections properly tended. Something about the idea of Livia’s sacrifice unsettled Alexander, it was a thing he could not get his head around. That was rare indeed, given Alexander’s breadth and depth and reach of knowledge and experience.
Alexander went on, his head tilted, and Gabe brought himself back to focus. “What made you decide on this?”
“We need some solution. If I can manage this, Thanet will have to assent. Concede. And he’ll bring quite a few with him. Leverage, as you said. Movement. It won’t be enough, by itself. We’ll still have to do the protection work.”
“It never is enough to make the glorious gesture, is it? The world would be quite a lot different if it were. Geoffrey?”
Geoffrey set his drink down with a quiet little clunk. “It is outside what has been done. That doesn’t mean it isn’t needed. And the terms of the Pact allow for such negotiations, even if you haven’t for a very long time. You know we’ve wondered about the Armada, in particular.”
“You and your history.” Alexander half-smiled. “Cyrus will know better, when. All right, Gabe. Off with you. I need to write a number of notes and do my own research.”
Not at all subtle, now. Gabe stood. “Tomorrow at ten. Let me know if there’s anything else I should bring besides myself and my notes, to be gone through with red ink.”
Alexander shook his head, but stood to come let Gabe out of the warding. At the door, quietly, he added two sentences. “We were all grateful, Friday, and extremely impressed when we had a chance to catch our breaths. I don’t know if you realise how much.”
Gabe didn’t remotely know what to say to that, so he just nodded once, went out the door, and down the street.